


Finding a Pack at the End of the World

by DFW



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Apocalypse, F/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:49:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DFW/pseuds/DFW
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Allison and Derek have spent the last year trying to make it home. The problem is that apocalypses makes things kind of tricky. Especially when they stop at a gas station.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding a Pack at the End of the World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kissoffools](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissoffools/gifts).



Allison reeks. Derek smells worse. They’ve been holed up in the car together for weeks, stopping only for a few hours of shut eye off the road, hidden by bushes thick enough to hide Derek’s sleek volvo. Though, after months of migration across the United States, their SUV is covered with enough dirt as to look like a giant boulder when it wasn’t moving.

Months. It took four to five days to span the US in a motor vehicle but that’s with infrastructure. A year after everything went dark and “infrastructure” has been demolished to a few back roads and sporadic radio contact. It took Derek and Allison six months to reach Los Angeles and another to get into the area formally known as North Cal. Most of the time spent hawking for petrol and hiking it back to the car. Allison wanted to leave it; Derek wanted to rip her face off for the suggestion. He ignored her and focused on keeping his promises. To Scott. To bring her back safe and, Derek suspected, with her pretty dimpled face intact. Derek doesn’t like to believe he would ever chase after her if she abandoned the car but as long as she stayed he’d keep her safe, annoying insights and all.

“Derek,” Allison croaks, “there’s a station up ahead.” Her voice is raspy; she’s been suffering from an infection for sometime now. Allison thinks its a cold but Derek hears her rattling at night — the thick sludge in her chest as she leans her head against the door, her lungs struggling to push air even when logged with fluid. Derek needs to get her medicine; antiobiotics from a pharmacy preferably but he’d settle for cough syrup to keep her breathing.

“We’ll stop for supplies,” he mutters and Allison settles back against the head rest. When she closes her eyes Derek can see the dark circles surrounding them. He can’t help but grip the wheel tighter.

“Derek?” Allison asks more firmly, as if to chastise him for his anxiety. Derek doesn’t look up from the road. “Make sure you stop. I need to pee.”

 

While Allison’s off in the bushes a Glock in her hand, Derek peruses the station. Even though Derek saw her stumble getting out of the car, he also saw her palms stay tight on her weapon. Besides he can smell her, the scent of ammonia in her urine, too strong from dehydration. At first her scent, a little like metal and milk and forest musk, annoyed him for a long time for being too close to what he smelled with Kate. But as the weeks went on, and they spent all their time together, he realized her scent was different. Kate was there at the initial but then as he breathed in further, past his anxiety and the dark memories, he realized she was different. Dangerous but when she dug her way inside, comforting.

Inside the store, Derek avoids the refrigerated side as much as possible. Everything is bare but there is still the smell of mold and fermentation underneath. This station was far enough from the CA highways that Derek is willing to break into the attendant’s booth to read the gauges, the lock door already a good sign. The first two arrows pointy to empty lines, but the third, most likely the reserve located in the back, had a line at tweenty. It was low enough to be a mistake but high enough to be worth the check. Derek finds two rusted empty drums in the garage and he rolls the first outside intending to direct Allison to the second—

Derek freezes.

Allison’s gun is raised but what has Derek’s heart thumping loud in his chest is the guy opposite her, his own shotgun raised.

Derek doesn’t remember changing. He just finds his chest rumbling, jaw unhinged to let out a growl and bare his fangs.

The man stumbles backwards, gun swinging toward Derek with all the assurance of a shot. “Holy shit!” The words hang in the air after the sound of a released bullet. If Derek were another, he would have moved, take a chance with a dive. But he’s travelled with Allison for almost a year. He knows that shot. The shotgun jerks in the man’s hand not because of a released trigger but because of the spreading bloom of red underneath his leather jacket.

“Let’s go,” Allison calls to him, moving faster than he’s seen in days. Derek lopes into the car, still transformed because he cannot rap his head around what just happened. Allison killed a man for pointing a gun at him.  
It isn’t until they’re miles away that he remembers the gas.

 

Petrol is too valuable to leave. That is the motto of the road. Its why Derek and Allison avoid the main highways, extending their trip by taking the backroads and driving through the neighborhoods. In the days following the darkness, gas stations became the second place one was likely to die; the first being the cities.

When Derek tells Allison about the full gauges, Allison pulls of the road and begins counting her bullets. It’s weird because they’ve been traveling for so long. Derek has never question Allison’s weapon choices, content to have her watching his back with them. But now, today, when she has lodged a bullet in a stranger’s heart he wonders when the last time she’s used a bow. Maybe when they go hunting in the rare moments they were short on food or just sick of dry snacks. But every other time they went to scavenge, when there was the threat of running into other people, she’d carried a pistol. For the first time, Derek questions her reasons. Was it for protection or for something more lethal?

“I had to do something,” Allison says. She’s not looking at him, instead she’s taken apart a rifle and is checking the parts. Derek sits in the passenger and wish he had the steering wheel to grip between his hands. Instead he looks at his elongated nails and tries to decide if he should attempt a change back. “He was armed,” Allison reminds him unnecessarily.

“He didn’t shoot.”

“Because I shot him first,” Allison finally looks up and gives him a hard stare. Derek meets it with his own.

“Shoot first is not how we do things,” He tells her. “It’s not how Scott does things.”

Allison looks away from him. “Scott isn’t here,” she says tiredly. Derek is too worked up to be deterred by her apathy.

“So you think I’m not going to tell him what you did?” Derek demands.

“I don’t care if you tell him,” Allison replies, testily. “I’m not ashamed. I did the right thing.”

“Scott won’t be happy— “

“Scott isn’t me and last time I checked, he isn’t you either!” Allison yells, and immediately succumbs to chest wrenching coughs.

Derek resists the urge to shake her. He doesn’t know why but he doesn’t want her to be sick. Not while he’s angry at her. Not when he feels so out of control.

Unable to help himself, Derek growls. He doesn’t know what he means by the question but he feels his fangs poking his lips and his brow stiffening and just cannot deal with his frustrations. He was suppose to be keeping her safe.

Allison opens the door and spits. Her coughs subside soon after. When she leans back up she gives him a look and Derek suddenly notices that sometime in the middle of their argument she’s put her gun back together.

“You know,” Allison says her eyes flashing. “I saved your life.”

“You killed a man.”

“And if he hadn’t died he would have taken the shot. And then what would you have done. Growled at him?”

“You don’t know what would have happen and besides if I had been shot I would have been able to heal.”

At this, Allison’s cheeks dimpled into something more threatening than a smile. “That last time you got shot by wolfsbane Scott said you almost lost your arm.”

Derek felt his eyes flash at the memory but he forced it down. “He was a hunter?” he questioned.

“I’ve met him. Before… this,” Allison told him, slightly subdued.

Derek tries to think back but his thoughts are jumbled with blood and spreading blooms. A hunter? This close to their home. Derek looks at Allison again and this time when he sees her determination he understands. Keeping their pack safe, that’s the whole point of everything.

“We’re going back,” He says and Allison smirks at him.

“I knew you’d see it my way,”she says.

Derek leans closer to her. “Just for the gas. We’re not going to hunt down anything.”

“It never crossed my mind,” Allison said innocently. She pulls off the look perfectly but Derek hears the tiny skip in heart and finds it reassuring. They’re on the same page.

“I’m driving,” he tells her. Allison nods, coughing again and Derek makes a note to find a pharmacy, even if its out of their way.

“I love how eager you are to agree with me now,” Allison says as she pulls down her seatbelt on the passenger side. “It makes me wonder how much you wanted to kill me all those years ago.”

“You’re pack now, ” Derek dismisses not wanting to think about the times before. It takes him awhile to realize what he’s just said. When he looks over Allison is staring at him with wide eyes and dimpled cheeks and he swallows the denial that came to tip of his tongue on instinct. “You’re pack,” he says again. “Pack keeps each other safe.”

Allison smiles wider and Derek takes off down the road back towards the gas station, where they’re sure to get into trouble. But they’ll keep each other safe.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for TW Rare Pair Exchange for kissoffools. I know its not much but I hope you find some enjoyment out of it. I have notes for this universe so I might revisit it sometime with more info about the world Allison and Derek are in. Also to explore their eventual romance.


End file.
